Cheney’s Speech

Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave a speech today in reply to President Obama‘s speech. It was, to say the least, an interesting event. Cheney’s speech was carefully crafted, well delivered, and an impressive bit of work. I’ll focus my discussion on two main points.

Cheney makes no bones about his support for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. His defense in the speech consists of three main points. First, these techniques were only used on the very worst people. Second, these techniques were not used that often. Third, these techniques yielded effective information.

In regards to the first point, Cheney does make reasonable point. Ethically, how we can treat people does depend on their own moral status. For example, punishing an innocent person would be wrong becasuse he is innocent. However, punishing a person who has committed crimes would be acceptable-they have earned their punishment.

However, there are clear ethical limits on how even bad people can be treated. While their evil justifies acting against them, these actions must themselves be just. Cheney’s view is that what was done to these people was acceptable. However, some regard the methods employed to go beyond reasonable moral limits. My inclination is that the line was crossed-after all, we are not supposed to engage in cruel or unusual punishments. The techniques do seem to be cruel and unusual, which crosses that moral line.

In regards to the second point, while more bad deeds are worse than fewer bad deeds, the number of times something is done does not seem like an adequate defense. To use an analogy, a person who murders 500 people has done something worse than someone who murders three people. But we would hardly accept “hey, I only killed three people” as a defense. To be fair to Cheney, his point seemed to be that those who oppose him have exaggerated the extent to which the techniques were used. That is a reasonable point and would, if he is right, require that any exaggerations be corrected. However, even if there are fewer cases than believed, this does not alter the morality of the actions themselves.

The third point is Cheney’s best defense and is a classic utilitarian strategy. His argument is that the methods were justified in those cases because 1) other methods would not work and 2) his approved methods worked and yielded information that saved lives.

The first claim is, of course, an empirical claim. If Cheney can show that all other reasonable methods were attempted and failed, then his claim would be well supported. Naturally, he only has to deal with reasonable methods-not every possible method. Cheney seemed to indicate that these other methods were not used due to the urgency of the situation. If so, then we cannot be confident that the other methods would not have worked. After all, these other methods have been used with great success. To use recent example, the terrorist bomb and missile plot in NYC was dealt with using an informant rather than enhanced interrogation.

The second claim is also an empirical claim. My view is that enhanced interogation techniques (like waterboarding) do not yield reliable information. As has been well established, people under extreme duress will say things simply to stop the duress. I argue for this in my book, so I will not rehash this here. However, perhaps Cheney has evidence that his methods really did work. Unfortunately, as he pointed out, the information about the effectiveness of his methods have not been released (assuming it exists). As such, a proper judgment cannot be made. However, if the methods did work, then they can be justified on utilitarian grounds: doing some harm to terror suspects avoided far greater harm to others, thus making the actions morally acceptable. This, of course, is based on the assumption that Cheney is right and that the way to assess actions is based on their consequences.

Of course, Cheney’s argument can also be countered on utilitarian grounds. Even if the use of his methods saved lives, the other consequences must also be taken into account. These include, as some have argued, the damage to America’s image and providing terrorist groups with a powerful recruiting tool. The damage to America’s image seems to have made other nations less inclined to aid us in our efforts, thus making things easier for the terrorists. Also, the idea that America tortures and abuses people would certainly seem to provide an excellent recruiting tool. True, terrorist groups have been recruiting long before such abuses were revealed, but this does not show that these groups are not using this as a tool. To use an analogy, people sold products prior to the internet but this hardly shows that the internet is not an effective advertising tool.

All of this comes down to a basic question: did the benefits of using these methods outweigh the harms? Cheney claims that they do; his opponents claim they did not. At this point, the evidence seems to be against Cheney. However, important information might still be unavailable.

Now, to second main point I am considering. Cheney claims that the Bush Administrations methods kept America safe. In support of this, he presented dilemma: we can either believe that the Bush Administration kept us safe or believe that the 9/11 attack was a “one off” event. That is, that 9/11 was a one time thing and nothing else would have happened even if no action was taken to defend America.

Cheney is, of course, making a causal claim: the Bush Administration’s actions caused America to be safe. Counter factually: if the Bush Administration had not done what it did, then America would have been attacked again.

Now, it is true that after the Bush Administration started doing things there were no more terrorists attacks on US soil. However, to assume that one caused the other without adequate evidence would be to fall victim to the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. The mere fact that one thing happened (or did not happen) after another does not prove that there is any causal connection. For example, Windows XP was released in October of 2001. However, it would be silly to conclude that Windows XP kept the nation safe from terrorist attacks.

What is needed is good evidence that what the Bush folks did is causally linked to the lack of attacks. After all, there could be many other factors that resulted in a lack of attacks on US soil. Perhaps the terrorists used up their resources. Perhaps Americans were more on guard against such attacks, regardless of what the Bush folks did. Perhaps the methods that were used prior to 9/11 were adequate to prevent further attacks and the Bush changes really did nothing. In short, Cheney could be presenting a false dilemma.

Another point well worth considering is whether we are actually safer because of the Bush Administration. Clearly, all the people killed in Iraq were not made safer by the Bush folks. Also, the Bush folks were not very big on diplomacy. As such, we saw the “coalition of the willing” become smaller and smaller. We also saw international support and cooperation with the United States decrease. Our actions in Iraq and revelations about abuse and torture also helped spur on anti-American sentiments and actions. While there were no more attacks on US soil, many people have died in Iraq, the Taliban is strong again (and attacking Pakistan) and Iran’s influence has grown considerably. Our military is stretched thin and being worn down. We are also pouring vast amounts of money into a war we should not have fought (Iraq) and one that we should have won by now (Afghanistan). Our economy is still tanking badly.

The objective evidence is that the Bush folks did not make us safer nor better off. So, you are mistaken, Mr. Cheney.

Cheney does make a rational utilitarian case for the use of enhanced interrogation and other harsh methods. Of course, a utilitarian case can also be made against him. I do agree with him that the information about the techniques alleged success needs to be released. Without that, a proper utilitarians assessment cannot be made.

A Kantian would, of course, not need that information. The act itself would be either good or bad.

My school, FAMU, is hurting financially. So too are the other schools in Florida-I have friends at FSU whose departments are going the way of the Dodo. I’m hoping that as the economy turns around we’ll get some of our money back. Until then, I’m worried about what we will have to cut and how it will hurt the students.

So we have captured KSM, a guy who freely admits he beheaded Daniel Pearl. He hints he has knowledge of planned attacks on innocent civilians.

We are responsible for protecting these people. How do we get the information?

In hindsight, I think we can safely say that Cheney was wrong, and that waterboarding was not necessary.

That said, it is not obvious to me that we should sacrifice the lives of thousands to spare someone like KSM 20 minutes of discomfort–even extreme discomfort. As far as I know waterboarding does not kill or even cause permanent physical harm, but creates the illusion that the person is drowning. At some level it is not so different from the illusions they used to create on “Mission Impossible.” I remember one episode when they made a white supremacist believe he had turned black. I don’t think anybody believed that was torture.

From a utilitarian standpoint, torture could be justified. If, as Cheney argued, the use of such methods was the only way to save thousands of people, then it would be acceptable. After all (as you say) the deaths of thousands is a far greater harm than the discomfort (or even severe torment) of one person.

There is also the practical question of what counts as torture. For some, water boarding is just an enhanced technique. For others, it is torture. Cheney certainly seemed to be trying to assert that the methods he endorsed are not actually torture.

As with many moral issues, there is a lot of gray between the black and the white. For example, if you use a harsh tone of voice and shine a light in someone’s eyes, then that is not torture. If you crush someone’s fingers with a hammer, then that is torture. Water boarding is clearly between these.

Frank, can you be more specific? If I am fired from my job it causes mental harm, if I fail a test it causes mental harm, if I ask a girl out and she turns me down it causes mental harm…you get the idea.

Exactly what kind of mental harm are we talking about? Can it be measured? Exactly how is this harm permanent in any sense?

I didn’t think I had to be specific. I am Frank after all.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia (yes not the most trusted resource, but better than Fox News).

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated “a number of people” who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, “[He] argued that it was indeed torture, ‘Some victims were still traumatized years later’, he said. One patient couldn’t take showers, and panicked when it rained. ‘The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience’, he said”.[6] Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that “water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse”.[24]

Cheney has always possessed excellent logic and is a great speech writer. I tried to get people to notice this by showing a couple of his speeches on my blog a year back, but Bush Derangement Syndrome and Let’s all Laugh with John Stewart Syndrome prevented most from seeing that Cheney is a smart guy/

Frank: Oh so now the standard is to not cause mental harm? Does putting someone in prison for life cause mental harm? I’m sure it does.

Mike, the terrorists did not use up their recourses. We froze their accounts and took their recourses. The attacks did not stop because of things in place before 9-11. There were successful attacks on US interests and citizens over and over prior to 9-11. I won’t get into the details as I’ve done so several times before.

It’s absolutely false that we are not safer. The problems you spoke of have been around for a long time–Clinton ignored them.

Oh and by the way–Al-Qaeda–the most powerful terror organization in world history–is all but destroyed.

Everyone just wants easy answers. Perfect, clean responses to dirty problems. Do you think we would have been safer by not waterboarding two people? No you don’t.

In the end, everyone is utilitarian, except when it comes to discusses abstract situations that rarely exist in reality or discussing difficult issues form the safety of our homes. In the clinch though, most people do what they have to to protect themselves. Anyone here would hope that someone was splashing water on a terrorist were they the ones about to be martyred on Youtube and that terrorist knew where they were. Abstract and grandiose ideas of right and wrong fade away and things become very clear when you’re about to die or you face dangerous situations.

Safer is, of course, a relative term. When it is claimed that the Bush folks made us safer, the question that must be asked is “safer than what?” In other words, what standard of comparison is being used? Another fair question to ask is who is meant by “we”?

I think a fair standard is this: did the Bush folks make use safer than we could have been using other methods and approaches? This involves asking if there are better strategies and methods that could have been used.

As far as the “we”, if this includes the people of Iraq and the soldiers and civilians sent there from other countries, then the answer is clearly no. After all, thousands of people have been killed and maimed.

Further, the Iraq war took our attention from Afghanistan and enabled Iran to enhance its influence in the region. Because of this poor choice, our military is stretched thin and being exhausted. If we need to take action elsewhere in the world, we will be hard pressed to do so. As such, the Bush folks decision to invade Iraq did not make us safer, it made us less so. The best evidence is that Iraq lacked WMDs and did not have any meaningful terrorist ties. Yes, Saddam was a bad man. But Iraq was hardly a serious threat to the United States. So, we’d be safer if we had not invaded.

The Bush folks also dumped millions into ineffective methods. I’ve written elsewhere on this. For example, the nuclear detection systems that are supposed to protect us are a joke. That money could have been used in better ways for methods that work. So, we’d be safer if the resources had been used in different ways.

The Bush folks also did horribly when it came to natural disasters. The people in Katrina were not safer under Bush and his folks. Much more could have been done.

No, not everyone is a utilitarian-even in the clinch. Also, some people are willing to die for what they believe is right-even if doing wrong can buy them more time. Socrates is a good example of this.

While academic discussions of good and evil are just that, good and evil are not just grandiose ideas. We are talking about what sort of people we should be. This is no abstract thing and no small thing.

Yes, people do surrender their principles to expediency and to survive. But is this a good trade? Does it profit a man to trade his soul for the world…or for just a few more years of life?

Someday death will claim each of us-preventing that is beyond out power. But what sort of people we are is something within our power.

Also, the dilemma between morals and survival is a false dilemma. While there are situations in which that choice must be made, most of life enables us to stick with our principles and still survive. In fact, it can be argued that being moral is an effective way of life. At least Aristotle and Confucius thought so.

Waterboarding has given the Dems yet another chance to grandstand on their superior morality, which as usual turns out to be a sham–they supported it when we needed it most.

And you know what? The American public supports it too–60% of us.

My soul will be fully intact when i pour water on someone to save a life. You all can be real proud of yourself when Habib knows about impended attacks and you fail to act accordingly. Don’t give the save my soul stuff. If you aren’t willing to splash someone with water to save life–it’s your morality that should be questioned.

Ah, you straw man me. I’ve never taken self defense to be evil. Protecting the innocent is morally correct. Locke has some good arguments for this in his discussion on punishment. I have nothing better; so I’ll just borrow his. While I do admire the will needed to be a true pacifist (and not a coward), that is a flawed view. It allows the wicked to go unopposed, which is unacceptable.

My conscience retains its capacity for shock and dismay. But, I’ve had an easy life free of true violence. I’ll admit that this colors my perspective.

If splashing water on a terrorist was the only way to save thousands, I’d do it. It would be selfish of me to refuse to harm myself morally and thus allow thousands to die. But, I think that is a false dilemma. It isn’t true that we have to water board people or thousands die. There are other methods.

We can stay safe without secret prisons and without torture. In fact, we are safer without them. Look at our classic enemies: we oppose them because of the evil they do. They do not respect our basic values. That makes us better than them and it is one reason why people really want to come to the United States. After all, many countries build walls to keep people in. We are (wrongly) thinking about building them to keep people out.

Goodness is not weakness-goodness is actually strength. If you want to be religious about it, the righteous are on the side of God. If you want to be practical about it, evil is a fatal and divisive weakness. Good often has a rough day of it, but the virtues of the good are superior to the vices of the wicked.

Our basic values include accepting inalienable rights, rule of law, moral equality, political equality, and so on. Check out the Constitution and American political and legal philosophy for more details.

“It isn’t true that we have to water board people or thousands die. There are other methods.”

Mike, I’ve seen this assertion made many times, but it is always vague what these “other methods” may be. One writer remarked that in WWII we would play ping pong with the German POWs, and that this sort of approach would work with Jihadists as well.

Although I’m not an intelligence expert, here are some other methods:
1) Technological means: recon photos, legal phone and computer tapping and so on.
2) Human intelligence: informants, contacts, leaks, rumors, data analysis, under cover work and so on.
3) Non-enhanced techniques: the methods used legally by the police and military as outlined in the relevant laws and conventions.

While playing ping pong might seem like a stupid idea, people can often be won over by positive approaches. People have a psychological need to belong and most people respond favorably to positive approaches. These can be used to win people over and gain valuable intelligence. Also, most people like to talk and tend to be bad at logic. Hence, people can often be lead to reveal things through careful questioning.

Certainly hard core fanatics will be tough to deal with and will require other methods. Fortunately, most top people tend to be politically minded-they are in it for the power and such. Hence, they can be reached through those avenues. They can, to be crude about it, be bought much like our own leaders. You just have to find the right coins. Of course, I do have some moral doubts about using corruption as a tool.

To turn to the practical question: do those “1%” methods work more effectively than the other 99%? Is it a matter of necessity that they be used? What sort of evidence is there to support “yes” answers?

I love it when people who don’t believe what the Bible says use it in arguments. Jesus was crucified and hung between two thieves. He never told them they didn’t deserve to be hung on crosses. Actually, one of the thieves says that Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to be crucified, but that the thieves did. Jesus agreed and promised the man paradise. So I guess Jesus knew bad people sometimes deserve bad things.

I’m sticking to my principles too; splashing people with water is bad. Allowing innocents to die so can can feel good about not scaring a terrorist is much, much worse.

Christianity is a bit divided on that issue. Some Christians hold that an all good, loving God will give us an infinite amount of time for redemption. Some hold that when judgment day rolls around, the elect get Heaven and the wicked get Hell forever and ever.

Jesus himself seemed rather big on forgiveness and mercy. Of course, he is also taken as speaking about damnation. I don’t claim to know what view is correct. But, if God is love, then it seems that He would not give up on any of us. He has infinite time and presumably infinite patience-so perhaps no one is beyond redemption. Then again, perhaps some people can willfully chose evil for an infinite duration.

“Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative. In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.” ~ From Cheney’s speech.

Just a bit of information here. The method virtually never last for “twenty minutes.” More along the lines of twenty seconds. Some very tough to crack subjects might last a full minute. As far as permanent psychological damage? I have to think that situation is few and far between. Most, if not all Special Operations people undergo waterboarding as a part of their training. Although the information would be classified, if any significant number of those people developed PTSD, or a similar problem, it would have been leaked by now. That type of training goes back at least to 1971. I do not consider it to be torture at all. I do consider it to be a necessary evil though. Much along the lines of killing an opponent that is hell bent on killing you.

“If splashing water on a terrorist was the only way to save thousands, I’d do it. It would be selfish of me to refuse to harm myself morally and thus allow thousands to die. But, I think that is a false dilemma. It isn’t true that we have to water board people or thousands die. There are other methods.”

But it obviously is a way to save thousands as in L.A. . You have not proven otherwise yet. What is a method that would have worked and why don’t we use it. Are the people that decided to use water-boarding as a collective evil, misguided etc.? Why didn’t they choose these other methods you speak of? Water boarding is effective and we are debating whether it really has lasting effects. It obviously cannot be that bad of a form of torture. I would volunteer doing it for the challenge. I would not, however, volunteer to have my toes crushed, fingers cut off, or be poked by hot irons. These seem like torture to me when I think of them.

Imagine how much of a failure a fiction novelist would be if, to convey the horror of torture, the writer had the protagonist held captive by the antagonist and water boarding was being threatened. James Bond, held captive and spread eagle on a table, had a bucket of water approaching his head. No, not a laser approaching his crotch but a FULL gallon pail of water in a bucket ready to be released upon his cloth cover head! Oh the humanity! The novel would be a failure and a movie never would have been made. This of course does not really prove anything but I thought it would be amusing.

What do you mean by a way to save thousands in L.A.? Is this the hypothetical attack that is prevented using hypothetical torture hypothetically? Or do you have an actual case in mind?

The burden of proof is not on me. I don’t have to prove that torture is not effective; rather it must be shown that it is. To use an analogy, if I say that drinking substance X will cure your cold, then it is up to me to prove that. Likewise, if you claim that torture works, then you need to prove that.

The other methods of which I speak have been used and used effectively. Just check out the books and articles being churned out on the subject. Also, American police have to use non-enhanced methods and they seem to do an effective job. Further, normal intelligence activities involve non-torture info gathering.

Also, as I have argued countless times, if enhanced methods work at eliciting truth, then we’d have conclusive proof of the existence of witches. After all, people admitted to being witches under enhanced interrogation. So, if it works, then the proof is there.

I do wonder why some people are so eager that such techniques be used. In some cases, people do not even show any moral reluctance about such methods.

Well, water boarding would probably look rather unpleasant. Not on par with mutilation, but still the image of someone struggling for breath, thinking they are drowning would probably look bad enough.

This has certainly been an interesting thread. I added you to my blog roll BTW.

When I first began the formal study of ethics the course was called “Doing the good.” One of the many things that I discovered early on was that without knowledge of the issue (Whatever that may be.) a proper and complete decision simply cannot be made. For the sake of simplicity, I call that “full discloser.”

Since that requirement has not, and I do not believe that it ever will be met, we cannot come to a complete realization of this issue. Just taking in a few parts, and adding in speculation results in a flawed result. Think algebra. Think a third degree equation. There will be three answers but only a single solution. I believe that we are in a similar situation here. The discussion has devolved into speculation on several fronts, because of a lack of factors. Then we are left with a garbage in garbage out scenario.

I think that we are in an ethical conundrum, and that, lacking all pertinent information a complete solution cannot be reached. I earlier refereed to Kant, and using that methodology, this issue fails two of the three tests. That clearly places waterboarding into the realm of the unethical. However, that, as noted, is based upon not having all the information, and must be considered flawed.

You raise an excellent point. While there is a general moral issue that can be debated, we are operating in the shadows. Cheney and his supporters claim that enhanced interrogation works and has saved thousands of lives. But, he claims that Obama will not release that information. Is that true? Is there such information? Is Obama willfully hiding the successes of the Bush administration to score political points? Well, we don’t know for sure.

If I were a utilitarian, if Cheney was right that his techniques saved thousands of lives, and if the harm to the United States’ reputation was outweighed by the benefits of these techniques, then I’d be for its use and continued use.

Oddly enough, I agree with Cheney on the point that if Obama is going to release some of the torture memos, he also needs to give us the rest of the information. While Kant (as you noted) would hold that torture is bad regardless of the consequences, the facts are quite relevant to the debate. If we have the right to know that such things were done, then we should have the right to know the results.

Of course, Cheney might know that releasing such information might actually be harmful to ongoing operations-perhaps he is using it as a clever ploy to hit Obama knowing that Obama cannot comply and that Obama would look “Cheney like” if he just cited National Security. If so, Cheney is a very clever fellow.